Four suspects still alive in Mississippi Burning killings

If you have information on these killings or on the suspects themselves, please e-mail me at jmitchell@clarionledger.com.

At least four suspects are still alive in the Ku Klux Klan’s killings of three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, on June 21, 1964 (commonly known as the Mississippi Burning case).

FBI's 1964 reward poster for the three missing civil rights workers

They are Olen Burrage of Philadelphia, Pete Harris of Meridian, former Philadelphia police officer Richard Willis of Noxapater and Jimmie Snowden of Hickory.

Burrage owned the property where the bodies were buried. He has insisted on his innocence, but one of the killers told the FBI that Burrage met Klansmen after their deed was done and gave them gasoline to burn the station wagon.

In addition to that, an informant told the FBI that Burrage — before Klansmen seized and killed the trio — had bragged he had a dam that would hold civil rights workers.

Olen Burrage

I am currently digging through 40,000 pages of FBI records in hopes of finding the identity of that informant or clues regarding others who may have attended the meeting and heard the remark.

If you know of anyone who might have information on these suspects or on the case itself, please e-mail me at jmitchell@clarionledger.com.

Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers — who ordered the trio’s killings and many more as head of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan — once bragged that the truth of what happened that night and so many other dark nights in Mississippi would remain buried forever.

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About The Author

Jerry Mitchell, an investigative reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., runs Journey to Justice, a blog that explores the intersection of justice and culture in this place we call the United States​. His work has helped put four Klansmen behind bars, including the assassin of NAACP leader Medgar Evers in 1963 and the man who orchestrated the Klan’s 1964 killings of three civil rights workers. His latest stories have helped lead to the arrest of serial killer suspect Felix Vail — the last known person seen with three women. Mitchell, a 2009 MacArthur fellow, is writing a book on cold cases from the civil rights era.